Port Eynon caterpillar

The caterpillar we collected on 1st Jan has grown substantially and is 26mm long after moulting a few times. It's clear now that it is a Square-spot Rustic, so our tentative Mythimna id was clearly wrong and a reminder that attempts at identifying young larvae are likely to have a high degree error.

Rhoose Top 10 2011 & 2012

Here's my data for 2011 & 2012.  The most notable points I guess is the appearance of Silver Y at no 2 for 2012, and the fact that overall numbers of the commonest species appears not to have altered dramatically despite the poor conditions in 2012, except for H&D.  Curiously the total number of species trapped was also greater in 2012.  That could be explained by my identification skills becoming better (slowly!) though.  I also wonder if I may have been misrecording Uncertain/Rustics as Vine's Rustics in 2011?

	2012
Heart and Dart	361
Silver Y	173
Light Brown Apple Moth	135
Large Yellow Underwing	116
Garden Grass-veneer	83
Common Rustic agg.	73
Uncertain/Rustic agg.	68
Dark Arches	56
Hebrew Character	55
	2011
Heart and Dart	1345
Large Yellow Underwing	116
Dark Arches	98
Light Brown Apple Moth	85
Setaceous Hebrew Character	67
Vine's Rustic	66
Garden Grass-veneer	65
Marbled Minor agg.	57
Shuttle-shaped Dart	54

Llandaff North Top10

I had these stats to hand so it didn't take long to put together something similar. I've ranked them as far as 20 in each previous year.















It's actually a Top 12 as there was a three-way tie for 10th this year. Similar to Dave, the top 3 are quite consistent although the placings change, but beyond that it varies a lot year to year. The Llandaff North and Llanishen lists are quite similar, except I have a few geometrids (Willow Beauty, Riband Wave & Brimstone) in place of Dave's noctuids (Flame Shoulder, Dot & Dark Arches).

more Llanishen Stats

Following the other stats posted last week, I thought I'd take a quick look at my garden top 10 and see how it's changed over the past couple of years. I've only done from 2010 onwards so far (may go back further in due course). From this though, apart from the top two, there is very little consistency in my trap!

			2012	2011	2010
1	2089	Heart and Dart	594	1 (1238)	1 (842)
2	2107	Large Yellow Underwing	208	2 (357)	2 (131)
3	998	Light Brown Apple Moth	185	-	4 (61)
4	2109	Lesser Yellow Underwing	91	5 (90)	-
5	2102	Flame Shoulder	90	8 (70)	3 (123)
6	2321	Dark Arches	90	4 (148)	10 (43)
7	2155	Dot Moth	80	6 (79)	10 (43)
8	1764	Common Marbled Carpet	69	-	9 (45)
9	1293	Garden Grass-veneer (Chrysoteuchia culmella)	65	3 (167)	-
10	2111	Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing	64	-	-

Winter GMS

Last night in Cwmbach. No moths, of course, but wouldn't it have been amazing if there had been one in there.

Llanishen 2012

Following George's stats I've taken a look at mine:

Year	Species	New species	Trap nights	Total moths	Moths per night
2005	215	215	29	3365	116.0
2006	308	145	66	4600	69.7
2007	243	49	122	5739	47.0
2008	206	27	90	2766	30.7
2009	208	16	72	1821	25.3
2010	255	35	87	2816	32.4
2011	319	40	99	4697	47.4
2012	276	25	113	3672	32.5

As with George's data mine hides a switch from Skinner to Robinson, but mine was in 2012. This may have bolstered the figures slightly. The other thing that makes a direct comparison slightly tricky is that I trap more often during the winter now than I did back in the first few years, so the moths per night is bound to drop. So all this dataset really tells me is that the Robinson trap has made a difference!

Hardy Moth

Despite it being only 1.20 C, currently, an Early Moth has just appeared at the kitchen window. That has brightened up my evening, somewhat.

Llandaff North in 2012

Now that it's turned cold, it seems a good time to look back at last year...

This is the summary from my garden for 2007 to 2012:

Year	Species	New species	Trap nights	Total moths	Moths per night
2007	188	188	62	1824	29.4
2008	198	67	60	1983	33.1
2009	225	59	78	2130	27.3
2010	257	52	63	2821	44.8
2011	302	68	108	4336	40.1
2012	260	25	100	3589	35.9

Unsurprisingly, given the generally awful weather, 2012 wasn't a great year for moths, with the number of species and total number of moths being down on 2011 despite similar amounts of trapping. In fact, I only caught 3 more species than in 2010 when I did a lot less trapping. 2012 appears less bad when compared with 2007-2009, but I think this is partly due to switching from a Skinner to a Robinson trap in 2010 (the Robinson does seem to hold more moths).

A few species had a record year, including Garden Carpet, Common Marbled Carpet, Common Emerald, Swallow-tailed, Cinnabar, Buff Ermine, Silver Y, Dot, Angle Shades, and of course Light Brown Apple Moth. Far more species did poorly, particularly badly hit were many of the noctuids, including Vine's Rustic, Straw Dot, Setaceous Hebrew Character, Lesser BBYU, Flame Shoulder and Shuttle-shaped Dart.

Despite all the doom and gloom, 25 species were added to the garden list, 12 of them macros.

I'd be interested to hear how others got on. I'm sure we're all hoping for better moth weather in 2013...

Last Night

With another mild evening forecast, last night and colder weather ahead, I decided to give my Skinner trap a rare mid winter airing. I trapped in the intermittent drizzle from 17:25 until 23:05, as a favourite site of mine, between Cwmbach and Abernant and had eleven moths of seven species, these being:

Acleris ferrugana/notana x 2
Red-green Carpet x 2
Spring Usher x 1
Mottled Umber x 1
Early Moth x 2
The Satellite x 1
The Chestnut x 2

Spring Usher

Red-green Carpet

Sugar Revisited

Taking another look, just now, at the bamboo cane with the dab of sugar solution, put there to feed the Spruce Carpet this morning, I found other hungry mouth parts taking advantage of it. There were a few woodlice, a couple of Strawberry Snails and four or five of these tiny springtails, which I think are Dicyrtomina ornata. My macro lens is struggling at this scale, but the beauty of these tiny things is evident.

Springtail. Dicyrtomina ornata?

Llandaff North last night

There were seven moths in my trap this morning: Light Brown Apple Moth (3), Acleris schalleriana (2), Brown House Moth and this Pale Brindled Beauty (new for garden). Considering I've never had more than one moth per night in January in previous years, this is an excellent start to 2013 - let's hope it continues!

Pale Brindled Beauty

Early or Late?

Running the 22w garden trap overnight, for the winter GMS, it was a relief to get my first moth of 2013. In fact I had two, the first being an Acleris ferrugana/notana, which escaped as I tried to pot it. The other moth was a Spruce Carpet, which was either late or early; I can't decide. Either way, it was a welcome visitor to the trap and was rewarded with a dab of sugar.

Spruce Carpet Taking Sugar

1st Jan 2013

Mythimna sp.

We kicked the year off looking for Devonshire Wainscot larvae tapping the grassy over hangs above the soft cliff at Port Eynon Point. The only larva we found was probably just a Smoky Wainscot, but Common or Devonshire are possible, so we'll rear it on to find out. In the same grassy overhangs we did find lots of Tawny Cockroach nymphs that were very active in the mild conditions.

Tawny Cockroach (Ectobius pallidus)
...devils to photograph, but the hind leg is sharp!